Challenges in the Professional Training of Language and Intercultural Mediators: Translating Tourism Cross-Cultural Communication

The low quality characterising tourism translation into English in a country like Italy, boasting the largest cultural heritage in the world, is paradoxical and highlights the need for high-level professional translator training. The translation of tourism communication is a complex cross- cultural mediation practice as it is found at the crossroads not only of many disciplines such as history, arts, sociology, economics, but also of different semiotic resources, i.e. speech, writing, sounds, images. As a consequence, new multidisciplinary training options in the field of tourism communication should be created, answering the diversified needs of a tourist market constantly evolving. Furthermore, training should also cover new combinations of different semiotic and technological resources in order to make tourism communication accessible not only in terms of language and intercultural mediation, but also in a perspective of social inclusion. In 2018, a workshop within the TranslatingEurope project1 addressed the topics of tourism translation and cultural heritage accessibility. The aim of the workshop was to enhance appreciation for Italian tourism and cultural heritage by involving the widest audience possible. In this context, a community comprised of international tourists – including social groups such as the visually, hearing and language impaired – were taken as the recipients of a type of translation which would mediate not only language contents, but also values and cultural identities.